Autumn redundancies in UK could exceed 700,000
The Covid-19 pandemic could lead to around 700,000 redundancies in the autumn of 2020, revealed the latest analysis from the Institute for Employment Studies.
According to the analysis, these job cuts are to be added to the 240,000 redundancies recorded up until June.
The IES is predicting that there will be 445,000 redundancies between 1 July and 30 September and a further 205,000 in the final three months of the year.
The study predicted that up to half a million people, “and potentially significantly more”, were facing the prospect of losing their jobs. In a worse case scenario, there could be up to 1m job cuts across the country by the end of 2020.
The Institute for Employment Studies said the mass redundancies “will almost certainly exceed anything we have experienced in at least a generation”.
In its report, it also urged the government to include some financial aid to support those affected by the redundancies in its autumn budget, which will be released in a few weeks.
The government’s furlough scheme which was implemented to support businesses and workers during the pandemic is due to come to an end on 31 October, which could lead to a wave of redundancies.